From: "Jay Hanson" <j@qmail.com>
To: "WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK" <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: Re: oil, coal, and the world-system
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1998 07:02:45 -1000
	charset="iso-8859-1"
From: <tbos@social-sci.ss.emory.edu>


>I agree with Bruce.  Oil is far more plentiful than previously
>estimated, there is enough coal to last hundreds of years, and  the

The US will be effectively out of coal by 2040, global oil
production is expected to peak in less than 10 years, global
gas in less than 20.  Moreover, there really are no alternatives
to fossil fuel.

>shortage.  We should concentrate on more dire problems of  energy
>consumption than supply,  such a global warming 

What can be done?  I see the whole issue as "academic" because
nothing can be done to avoid the "crash" anyway.  I enjoy writing
and communicating with interesting people.

Here is another clip from my REQUIEM:

-----------------------------------------------------------------
_________________
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
    While an impressive array of American individuals, companies,
     banks, investors, and think tanks are scrambling to prepare
      for the twenty-first century, the United States as a whole
       is not and indeed cannot, without becoming a different
        kind of country.
                                                  -- Paul Kennedy

    The problem is, of course, that not only is economics
     bankrupt but it has always been nothing more than politics
      in disguise ... economics is a form of brain damage.
                                               -- Hazel Henderson

What can we do to avoid the "crash"?  As a society, Americans can
do nothing because of at least two fundamental -- and apparently
insoluble -- problems:

(1) In principle, democracy (i.e., government by the common
people) can not direct a country to any specific goal because
democracy is "process" politics as opposed to "systems" politics:

    As the name implies, process politics emphasizes the adequacy
    and fairness of the rules governing the process of politics.
    If the process is fair, then, as in a trial conducted
    according to due process, the outcome is assumed to be just
    -- or at least the best the system can achieve.  By contrast,
    systems politics is concerned primarily with desired
    outcomes; means are subordinated to predetermined ends.[41]

(2) American democracy is not even true politics because is based
on money -- one-dollar, one-vote.  What passes for politics in
America is actually a subset of our economic system.

In principle, it is not possible for our economic system to avoid
the "crash" because its premise, the conversion of nature into
commodities, is the heart and soul of our system problems.
Moreover, the doctrine of continuous and unlimited economic
growth serves as a substitute for redistribution of wealth and
true politics.  It's a way for the plutocrats to maintain
political superiority over the lesser classes while avoiding
unpleasant political questions:[42]

    It is the orthodox growthmen who want to avoid the
    distribution issue.  As Wallich so bluntly put it in
    defending growth, "Growth is a substitute for equality of
    income.  So long as there is growth there is hope, and that
    makes large income differentials tolerable" (1972).  We
    are addicted to growth because we are addicted to large
    inequalities in income and wealth.  What about the poor?
    Let them eat growth!  Better yet, let them feed on the
    hope of eating growth in the future![43]

With no true political system -- and no prospect of obtaining one
-- we have no means to save ourselves.  Unfortunately, several
billion innocent people will die untimely deaths over the next
hundred years.  Individuals in small communities can protect
themselves somewhat through cooperation with others (reciprocal
altruism).  But groups larger than a few hundred will
disintegrate under competition for increasingly scarce resources:

    In brief, our research showed that environmental scarcities
    are already contributing to violent conflicts in many parts
    of the developing world.  These conflicts are probably the
    early signs of an upsurge of violence in the coming decades
    that will be induced or aggravated by scarcity.  The violence
    will usually be sub-national, persistent, and diffuse.  Poor
    societies will be particularly affected since they are less
    able to buffer themselves from environmental scarcities and
    the social crises they cause.  These societies are, in fact,
    already suffering acute hardship from shortages of water,
    forests, and especially fertile land.[44]

[snip]
References at www.dieoff.org